Peter Scott-Presland has risen splendidly to the challenge of giving historical characters an ironic and incisive new script (to sing!). A Gay Century is a towering achievement. And Volume Two is due out soon.

 

Resuming my trawl through yesteryear gay fiction with this ‘classic’ from 1963, John Rechy’s chronicle – which we assume to be autobiographical – of a few months in the life of a nameless hustler haunting the cruising zones of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Mardi Gras New Orleans. It seems a bit dated today, but it’s one of the seminal books in the literary gay canon.

 

Rechy sets the tone on the opening page: “One-night sex and cigarette smoke and rooms squashed in by loneliness.” Every other chapter explores the life and mindset of a fellow hustler or one of the punters (“scores”), those men who are part predator and part prey. There is some humour, especially in the full-on Attitude of the camper gays and drag queens – the most extravagant of these are Miss Destiny, the self-crowned Queen of L.A.’s Pershing Square, and Chi-Chi, a mixed-up Muscle Mary in New Orleans. But for the most part the tone is unremittingly bleak. Sylvia, the bar-owner haunted by a guilty secret, is given more depth than many of the scores.

 

John Rechy

The narrator portrays himself as the macho street kid who’s only doing it for money but occasionally, with another hustler or one of the scores, he almost feels the tug of involvement. But that tug has to be resisted, because it would undermine his conviction that he isn’t really a fag. These are some of the book’s most revealing scenes. He never admits to love and only rarely to desire. Desperation is what drives the denizens of the Cities of Night onto “the lonely, crowded, electric streets.”

John Rechy creates a syntax of his own, routinely omitting the apostrophes in words like “isnt” and “dont”. Fragmented paragraphs bristle with dashes and ellipses (…). Past and present tenses are randomly mixed. He sandwiches words together to create a vivid new vocabulary: “nightworld”, “malehustler”, “sexhungry”. The hallucinatory writing recalls Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, so much so that I wonder if either of them contributed to the edit. The fractured narrative becomes repetitive, but there’s no denying the powerful impact of this nightmarish journey through the Gay Underworld. “We’re trying to swim in a river made for drowning.”

the original 1960s cover

 

This is not an erotic novel. The sex between hustler and score is rarely described and never detailed. Rechy’s second novel – Numbers – and its successors were a lot more explicit, and he abandoned the zonked-out Beat-poetry style for the pared-down prose of Harold Robbins or Mickey Spillane.

Reading City of Night in the 1960s, it seemed exotically different and daring. London’s gay scene was a pale echo of New York’s; Piccadilly and Leicester Square never quite had the lurid tawdriness of 42^nd Street or Times Square. A few pages from the end Rechy seems to foresee the rich harvest the Grim Reaper will gather from this relentlessly promiscuous community two decades later: “death lurking prematurely in a threatening black-out”. In 1963 John Rechy was a kind of “Pied Piper” figure, and as we know, the Piper – one way or another – has to be paid.

Delia Owens brings the marshes and the creatures that live there vividly to life. She has a wonderful way with words: ‘Barkley Cove served its religion hard-boiled and deep fried.’ Inevitably, Where the Crawdads Sing brings echoes of other great writers from the Deep South, notably Harper Lee and Truman Capote. The rustic courtroom scenes have all the drama and tension of To Kill a Mockingbird.

 

More than once this heartbreaking story of love and loss brought tears to my eyes. The ending is one that will stay with you forever. This is without doubt one of the finest novels this century is likely to produce.

Juniper Greer-Ashe‘s review

 

There’s something about this book that just feels beautifully crafted: the world building is careful, deliberate, and thorough: it brings to life a glittering picture of Italy in the 1960s and the complicated codes of conduct that regulate it. The characters too are finely drawn: they’re each so much more complicated than they might seem at first glance, and their stories unfold through a series of revelations and insights that makes them, and their experiences, feel nuanced and real. Lillian gets more and more compelling, the more time she spends on the page, and her search for her son is an exercise in love and growth that it’s impossible not to get caught up in. The Andrew we see through her eyes at first both is and is not the one she finds herself looking for as the story goes on, and that just adds to the overall sense that this is a journey worth going on.

Reviewed in the United States

 

 

Eighteen-year-old Juliet Armstrong takes a job with MI5 in 1940, typing up tedious transcriptions of the monitored conversations of Nazi sympathizers. She also infiltrates their ranks as a ‘fifth columnist’. It takes her a while to realize that one of her team is a double agent and even longer to do something about it. The operation leads, more or less accidentally, to two murders.

 

A decade later, Juliet is a junior producer with children’s radio at the BBC. An anonymous letter threatens consequences from past events. As more of that past is revealed, Transcription acquires increasing hallmarks of a spy thriller, although the author’s sprightly prose means that comedy overtones accompany even death and burials. “They were at a loose end without a funeral tea to go to. Poor Joan didn’t seem entirely dead without a glass of sherry and a slice of Dundee cake to send her across the Styx.”

 

As in Atkinson’s previous novels, the writing is crisp and witty, often aphoristic, with pleasing echoes of the late great Muriel Spark and even Alan Bennett. The ending – and a fascinating Author’s Note – provides a splendid surprise and a resonance with one of history’s greatest spy scandals. Kate Atkinson is without doubt one of our finest current writers.

* * *

Review from Allison D:

There is a bit of mystery throughout, as her son continuously eludes her for nearly the entire tale, (not necessarily of his own doing), a Prince who Lillian develops a very comfortable bond with and then…..Italy. Beautiful,  beautiful Italy and her Amalfi coast and her food, her drink, her coastline and her amazing history. Venice, and sailing and afternoon naps in the sun.  The loud, loving Italians, living life to the absolute fullest.

I normally do not read men authors.  And certainly not when the main character is a woman. This was written quite well, though.  Gee was able to (I think) correctly capture the spirit and attitude/behaviors of a 1960’s woman, traveling to another country in search of her son.  Her life has changed dramatically- she has lost her husband and in a way, her purpose. Her daughter is off in Hong Kong raising her own family, and Lillian seems a bit….restless. What does life have in store for her now?

As she spends more time in Italy, the friendship between Lillian and Prince Massimo is a bit convenient, but it is played out nicely.  (No spoilers here, folks.)  I want to say SO MUCH MORE about this storyline, but will simply say I liked the way it was tied up at the end.

My favorite character- by far- was Italy.  This book was the PERFECT read for me this month, as I am deep into researching the Italian side of my family tree.  The descriptiveness that Gee bestows on his readers is remarkable.  I could taste the wine, I could feel the sun toasting me to a golden brown. I could hear the water and see the beautiful sights of Venice.  If I did not want to travel to Italy before, I certainly do now!

For me, the book was a straightforward story of a mother who starts out on a journey to find her son.  What she doesn’t realize is she will find out a lot more than where he has been for the past 4 years, and will find herself along the way as well.